age start crowing/processing?

[Eggcellent Adventure]

Hi,

New to chickens and we got some wonderful laying hens from hatchery. Think we have at least one rooster in the mix. If we plan to turn our EE into a meat bird, what age do you generally process dual purpose breeds? If he starts crowing loudly, can we process sooner than the normal age and still have some amount of dinner meat? THanks!! In general are your meat birds crowing before they are processed (maybe not since I think meat birds mature much quicker than dual purpose birds)?

 

[annanicole18]

The dual purpose birds take much longer to mature I would say at least twice as long to get any meat to them. I butchered 5 black sex link roos the week after they started crowing and that was maybe around 20 weeks or so. They weren't super lean but they weren't your super market bird that was nice and fleshy for lack of a better word. Still they were enough for me and my husband to have dinner and chicken salad the next day. If he is a he and isn't mean but you cant have a roo maybe after the first crow make plans to butcher him.